ELVIS SAILS AGAIN
David J Christopher
With grateful thanks to Martine who had the patience to plough through the overlong first draft of this book, and still find something positive to say.
Also to my endlessly hard working editor, Fiona, who has read this book more times than should be asked of any human being.
Finally to Alan for the eye catching cover that brings Elvis and Naomi to life.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Author: David J Christopher
Cover design: Alan Stone
ISBN: 9789463982061
© 2020 David J Christopher
Chapter One
"Want my chips, Elvis? I'm on an input control regime."
"You mean a diet. How many is that this year?"
"We don't refer to it as a diet, so very passé," Naomi replied. "Anyway, don't be so negative, where's your positivity now? Do you want them, or shall I put them in that bin?"
"Chuck them over here then. Can't see good food go to waste, even if it does end up on my waist."
Elvis laughed at his own joke.
"You can't blame my chips for that lot," said Naomi stabbing her index finger into his flabby stomach.
Naomi had tried to order the "Homemade Lasagna and Chunky Chips" but without the chips.
"You can't, not going to happen," said the tattooed waitress. "I don't have a button for lasagna without chips. Look."
She shoved her hand-held device under Naomi's nose to prove her point.
"Anyway, the chef won't have time to deal with individual dietary requirements. Lunch time is our busiest time of day you know. Perhaps you should have come earlier?"
"Remind me why we come here," said Elvis. "Is it the warm welcome or the willingness to go the extra mile that attracts you?"
"I love the feel of this place," Naomi told him, "the fire, the beams, the horse brasses."
"Oh yes, very period," replied Elvis looking at the plastic surroundings. "I bet they cook the food on open fires out the back too."
An hour later, Elvis tried and failed to stifle a yawn. He gazed over the balding head of the man sitting opposite. He regretted his earlier choice of lunch and reminisced for the days when he could eat as much and as often as he wanted without feeling so bloated and lethargic. The man who sat before him, unlike Elvis, was thin to the point of angular. Bernard was the company's long serving accountant.
"Nice tank top," Elvis told him.
"Thank you. It was a present from Angela last Christmas," he replied.
"Orange suits you. Not many can get away with it."
As everyone in the office was required to wear civvies to work, Bernard, like his colleagues, was banned from wearing a suit. For him, this made his choice of clothes for each day more difficult. He rejected out of hand Elvis's mantra, regurgitated from one of his favourite business gurus, that wearing a suit constricted a person's originality and creativity.
"I don't think an accountant needs originality or creativity," he told Elvis but to no avail. His M&S suits remained in his wardrobe gathering dust.
Worse, today was "Jeans Friday" in aid of some telethon or other. He had bought a pair from Asda solely for these occasions. With them he sported a buttoned up blue shirt, brown tie and the bright orange tank top commented on by Elvis.
As Bernard summarised the month's performance, Elvis was staring at the photograph on the wall behind him. Taken in the early 1980's, Naomi and he were sitting on the stern of a 32-foot sailing boat called "Invincible." They both wore carefree grins, looking tanned and relaxed with their arms around each other. Elvis remembered the photo well. It had been taken at Lefkas in Greece, on the town quay. He with his long flowing bleached blond locks, her with her Lady Di style bob. Both wore figure hugging T shirts branded with the name of their fledgling company.
Bernard droned on. Elvis' attention flicked to the large mirror on his office wall. He instinctively held in his stomach and stretched his neck in an attempt to flatten out at least one of his treble chins. The beard that he had grown in an attempt to cover them was grey as was his thinning hair.
"For goodness sake, get a haircut," Naomi told him regularly. "A grey ponytail does not in any sense of the word make you look young."
"I bet no one has ever said that to Willie Nelson."
"Well they should have done."
"But I've worn my hair this way since I was fourteen," Elvis justified.
"And you probably got around on a chopper bike too, dabbing on a sherbet dip, but it doesn't mean you should do it now," she told him.
Today, whilst Bernard wore Asda, Elvis was squeezed into Boss Jeans.
"Just because you can do them up does not mean that they fit you Elvis," Naomi warned. "They're not supposed to be hipsters."
His Armani shirt was tucked into the jeans, and it was all held in place by a broad leather belt with an enormous buckle. On his feet he wore his beloved highly polished cowboy boots. Inside them, monogrammed socks. Elvis could not avoid the truth reflected in the mirror. He made a mental note that he really should get to the gym a little more often than he had managed in the months since Naomi had bought him membership.
"But it's not my fault," he said to himself, "it's the sedentary lifestyle I have to lead, not to mention all the marketing events where they practically force feed you vol au vents and Danish pastries. No, if I want to change my physique, I will simply have to change the way I work."
At that moment there was a knock at the door.
"Come," called Elvis pompously, holding up a flabby hand to Bernard to stop him in mid flow.
"Hi Elvis," he insisted that all his employees called him by his first name, which he was proud of, even if he had been ribbed mercilessly at school. Was it his fault his mother was a huge fan of the King of Rock and Roll? He might have been a Buddy, a Chuck, or worse a Cliff.
"Just to remind you that appraisals are starting at 3pm."
The speaker was Moira, his office manager, a trim woman in her 40s.
"Oh joy of joys," he said ironically, "well, I think we are nearly done here, aren't we Bernard?"
Bernard gave an inward sigh.
"Yes, I guess we are, though I'd like to chat about
